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As this game has a plethora of nations and diverse playstyles, it is obvious that some nations will excel at certain things. This thread is more of a discussion piece, so we can share our thoughts on the best nations in specific playstyles
I will have a runner up, and the best one for multiple styles of play, depending on what the circumstances need you to do.
1. Rusher
This style revolves around quickly attacking the enemy and preventing him from retaliating. These nations can fall off at one point or another, but their early game should always be feared.
Runner up: Tupi.
Simple economy, cheap units, solid early shipments, be certain that you will get swarmed by these guys. What holds them back is them having 2 settlers for different tasks, making early economy tricky to plan
Best: Egypt.
Fellahs are excellent at disabling enemy peasants and you can send them at Age1, when the only defence is hiding in your TC, you know he will lose a good amount of resources from having to defend his villagers from these raiders. Add an Age2 card that gives 13 of them...yeah. Don't be suprised if your opponent ends up starved of resources early on.
2. Boomer
Prepare slowly but steadily, and then unleash the beast! These nations rely on that one extremely powerful attack that can decide the game, most often in Age3 or 4.
Runner up: Japanese.
Known for their amazing Samurai and extremely powerful late game, the Japs can use their extremely powerful infantry to demolish the enemy with them only losing a minor amount of units. Add a Shogun to make them stronger, and you basically have a One Punch Man nation. What holds them back is that they are infantry reliant, so countering them is often quite easy.
Best: French.
Superior settlers, so economy is most often great. Excellent skirmisher, Foreign Legion is an extrenely formidable musketeer, and let's not start on their Cuirassier. There is a reason why French are feared late game.
3. Turtler
Play it safe, defend, and be unkillable. These nations focus on defending themselves.
Runner-up: Bulgaria.
Even though they have to wait a long time to produce military, their strong peasants and solid shipments make them able to hold out until they are able to strike a mighty blow.
Best: Habsburgs.
The nation is a defensive one for a reason. Various princesses for defensive bonuses, strongest forts, durable units, Trossen can counter spies, and walls that can easily reach over 10k HP. Have fun breaching that.
4. Economist.
To quote ABBA. Money, Money, Money. These nations focus on accumulating resources, and can give them to a militarist civ to ensure a powerful duo.
Runner-up: Brazil.
Various economy bonuses, free economic buildings, solid slaves, money is not a problem with these guys.
Best: Dutch.
Now imagine having to do 0 economy multitasking. 6+ Banks, you have to spam Ronin or something to drain all that gold. Also, since wood and food is cheap late game, and mercs, no suprise why Dutch have the best economy in the game. It also helps that the banks are extremely durable.
I only included the nations that are complete and playable without editing the game, before I get comments about the Maltese or sth. I hope to hear your thoughts, thanks for reading!

One criticism is that you have 2 sections, boomer and economist, which are basically the same.

For rushing , I would personally still pick Ottoman and Iroquois, over Tupi and Egypt. Ottoman are always gonna be more streamlined for a rush, and age pretty fast. And Iroquois now have 100 wood tradeposts, which means they can go 2 tp in age 1, use your starting travois for a house, age fast with the messenger and be able to spam shipments back to back immediately in age 2. Add in their cheap bows which inly cost food, big button tomahawk, and op war chief. Egypt for me are an awkward civ to play and although you can rush pretty fast I feel like they have a poor follow up.

Also the Dutch does not have the best economy in the game. Yes they have banks, but only 50 villager pop. And villager gather rates can be upgraded a lot, compared to banks. Most euro civs have 99 villager cap and France basically has 99 vills but only 80 pop space. As far as I know Dutch are considered weak in treaty, because their late game eco isn't the best.

Last edited by CelticCrusader on Sat May 06, 2017 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We could actually make this even more complicated AND let other civs shine if we combine two scenarios like:
What's the best civs to rush on a trade route/natives heavy map?
Or the best boomer with sea.
Or the best late-game with a rusher ally.
Etcetera.

And Serbia is also very good at rush. I have learnt to rush very recently (I still do terrible against the expert ai, and am still learning), but somehow I managed to rush very effectively with Serbia (and Portugal). Even Egypt or the Tupi seemed worse for me. Not that I have a lot of experience with both, but the same counted for Serbia.
It does depend a bit on nearby food (Borneo is like heaven), but I managed to build around 10 units every minute. Or in a game in the bad conditions (Iceland map with no berries and almost no huntables (I ignored the sea), against ai French who are within the 10 minutes III), it went for 26 minutes and I had 350 troops. The french artillery and fort were very annoying...

Circle of Ossus wrote:
And Serbia is also very good at rush. I have learnt to rush very recently (I still do terrible against the expert ai, and am still learning), but somehow I managed to rush very effectively with Serbia (and Portugal). Even Egypt or the Tupi seemed worse for me. Not that I have a lot of experience with both, but the same counted for Serbia.
It does depend a bit on nearby food (Borneo is like heaven), but I managed to build around 10 units every minute. Or in a game in the bad conditions (Iceland map with no berries and almost no huntables (I ignored the sea), against ai French who are within the 10 minutes III), it went for 26 minutes and I had 350 troops. The french artillery and fort were very annoying...

I have had a little play with Serbia and found a decent 6 min timing, although I would have to try it vs actual players to see it effectiveness. They have fast infantry training time, and a decent early game composition.

Since I downloaded the game, I could say that I have became a good raider with the Mapuche Nation. The good advantage is that most of their units are ridable so, you can hit your opponents earlier than they expect and also harass them so quickly. Some of the cons are the upgrades and possibly, you won't find a deck but the deck is already with them, so, the only affordable way to get shipments are just with trade routes.

AndrsHesse wrote:
Since I downloaded the game, I could say that I have became a good raider with the Mapuche Nation. The good advantage is that most of their units are ridable so, you can hit your opponents earlier than they expect and also harass them so quickly. Some of the cons are the upgrades and possibly, you won't find a deck but the deck is already with them, so, the only affordable way to get shipments are just with trade routes.

ShinkuroYukinari wrote:
As this game has a plethora of nations and diverse playstyles, it is obvious that some nations will excel at certain things. This thread is more of a discussion piece, so we can share our thoughts on the best nations in specific playstyles
I will have a runner up, and the best one for multiple styles of play, depending on what the circumstances need you to do.
1. Rusher
This style revolves around quickly attacking the enemy and preventing him from retaliating. These nations can fall off at one point or another, but their early game should always be feared.
Runner up: Tupi.
Simple economy, cheap units, solid early shipments, be certain that you will get swarmed by these guys. What holds them back is them having 2 settlers for different tasks, making early economy tricky to plan
Best: Egypt.
Fellahs are excellent at disabling enemy peasants and you can send them at Age1, when the only defence is hiding in your TC, you know he will lose a good amount of resources from having to defend his villagers from these raiders. Add an Age2 card that gives 13 of them...yeah. Don't be suprised if your opponent ends up starved of resources early on.
2. Boomer
Prepare slowly but steadily, and then unleash the beast! These nations rely on that one extremely powerful attack that can decide the game, most often in Age3 or 4.
Runner up: Japanese.
Known for their amazing Samurai and extremely powerful late game, the Japs can use their extremely powerful infantry to demolish the enemy with them only losing a minor amount of units. Add a Shogun to make them stronger, and you basically have a One Punch Man nation. What holds them back is that they are infantry reliant, so countering them is often quite easy.
Best: French.
Superior settlers, so economy is most often great. Excellent skirmisher, Foreign Legion is an extrenely formidable musketeer, and let's not start on their Cuirassier. There is a reason why French are feared late game.
3. Turtler
Play it safe, defend, and be unkillable. These nations focus on defending themselves.
Runner-up: Bulgaria.
Even though they have to wait a long time to produce military, their strong peasants and solid shipments make them able to hold out until they are able to strike a mighty blow.
Best: Habsburgs.
The nation is a defensive one for a reason. Various princesses for defensive bonuses, strongest forts, durable units, Trossen can counter spies, and walls that can easily reach over 10k HP. Have fun breaching that.
4. Economist.
To quote ABBA. Money, Money, Money. These nations focus on accumulating resources, and can give them to a militarist civ to ensure a powerful duo.
Runner-up: Brazil.
Various economy bonuses, free economic buildings, solid slaves, money is not a problem with these guys.
Best: Dutch.
Now imagine having to do 0 economy multitasking. 6+ Banks, you have to spam Ronin or something to drain all that gold. Also, since wood and food is cheap late game, and mercs, no suprise why Dutch have the best economy in the game. It also helps that the banks are extremely durable.
I only included the nations that are complete and playable without editing the game, before I get comments about the Maltese or sth. I hope to hear your thoughts, thanks for reading!

While french is one of the best boomers, USA is extremely powerful in lategame. Sioux with tepee and attack dance is also quite powerful. France have powerful units, but you have very limited choices in late game.

And in turtling, Ethiopians are even better than Hapsburgs. Towers with 150+ attack 15k+ HP, major buildings with 10k+ HP and your buildings' HP will be boosted even more with 'Lion of Judah' statue. Rock solid defense.